


Another Lonely Christmas

by SpookyMiscreant



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Holiday Fic Exchange, Kandreil - Freeform, M/M, Mass Effect Holiday Special, Post-Canon, aftgexchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpookyMiscreant/pseuds/SpookyMiscreant
Summary: This is a gift for ten-paces-fire for the aftg winter exchange!Kevin is stuck playing Exy overseas instead of in Columbia with his family for christmas.





	Another Lonely Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it!

Kevin's game had been scheduled for December 23rd in Ireland. The team had booked the return flight for the the 29th. Meaning that he wasn't going to be home for christmas. He was going to miss the Foxes’ celebration and be stuck in Ireland by himself for a week.

Ireland was a beautiful place, and the other members had brought their families with them to travel the gorgeous landscape and celebrate the holidays in a foreign country. Kevin hadn't wanted to drag Neil and Andrew away from their normal holiday routines, knowing how weird this time of year was for both of them.

How could he explain to Neil how much being with his mother in front of the fireplace each year singing carols had meant to him? How can he describe to Andrew the warmth that filled his entire being when his mother would laugh at how horrible her gingerbread house turned out every single year? How could he articulate the soft blanket of love and contentment that lay over the house the second he and his mother finished decorating the Christmas tree?

The only festive experiences his boy friends had ever had was new and both men were always very quiet when they all returned home. Kevin would never ask them to disrupt the tentative traditions that the Foxes were trying to build with the least cooperative members of their family.

He could do this. He could stay a week in a place his mother always dreamed of taking him to. He could stay a week in a place that every red haired woman reminded him of his fierce mother. A place full of her history, her fire, her essence that she'd somehow managed to keep thousands of miles away for so many years. She was an orphan, like he thought he was for the darkest time of his life, so he didn't have a family to visit while he was here. Didn't have a family to come see him play. Didn't have anyone.

The locker room was loud and full of laughter as The United States National Exy team started lining up for their game against Ireland. Kevin couldn’t bring himself to share in their merriment. There was too much weighing on his mind. He's rather think about the sport that'd saved his life as well as almost ruined it. Exy was easy. Exy was safe.

With the comforting thought that he and his teammates could win this game Kevin gripped his racquet in his left hand and strode out onto the court.

Kevin was off today. He felt it. He even tried switching to his right hand to give his left a break and yet he was still slow and distracted. At half time he'd be replaced for a quarter by Jones. They had been training together privately for weeks now. Preparing for the finals that had been looming over the entire team, but perhaps even more so on the six strikers. Kevin, Darnesha, Jones and Daichi were the main four and the ones who felt the most weight on their shoulders as each game passed and their points scored mattered more and more.

It was almost half time when Darnesha raced past Kevin her eyes on the goal, completely missing the backliner currently storming toward her. Kevin took one second to glance at the scoreboard and weigh his options before he abruptly raced to his teammate.

“What the fuck are you doing Day?! I can fucking make this shot!” Darnesha shouted as he caught up to her.

“I know!” was all he shouted before shifting his body at the last second and bracing for the hit.

He'd never done a more foolish thing in his life. He must been missing his boyfriends more than he thought because that was the most Neil thing he's ever done in his entire life. His bones ached from the force of the hit and the world slowed down as he crashed to the ground with the ferocious woman on top of him. He had misjudged how heavy all her muscle would be when it crashed into him.

He was definitely out for the rest of the game. He had to be half carried back to the bench. And as he sat and thought of how much he would've been yelling at Neil for doing something like this he realized he needed to go to the doctor.

He'd missed Neil loud angry words and Andrews quiet fury so much that he was hallucinating them. There was no way they were really in Ireland on the day they'd planned to drive to Columbia. No way that they were here yelling at his coaches to let them in when they could be just now getting to Abby’s and seeing their god children.

He blinked, his vision blurring and his boy friends disappearing. He knew he had hallucinated his happiness standing there. He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands to quiet the crushing loneliness that had to be a side effect of whatever brain injury had caused him to hallucinate.

Two rough hands lightly touched his shoulders. The doctor was finally here and she was going to take away this weight in his chest and the pressure in his skull.

“I think my heads hurt. I'm hallucinating.” came Kevin's slurred words.

“What you did out there was stupid.” a cold voice said to his left.

“But fuck me that was amazing!” laughed a second voice, this one on his right.

“Stop. Stop. They aren't here. They're happy and with family. You're hurt and need to go to the hospital. This isn't real.” Kevin whispered to himself tears building behind closed eyes.

“You're not completely wrong. You are injured and do need to go to a hospital.” answered Andrew.

“ We are happy. And with our family too.” Neil said, his smiled always carried into his words and into Kevin's mind.

The rough hands that had been tentatively resting on his shoulders moved down to his chin as Neil whispered, “Let's go Kev. They're going to let us take you to the infirmary.”

Kevin finally opened his eyes and saw that his boyfriends were indeed standing in front of him. Andrew to the left looking irritated yet pleased by Kevin's act of folly. Neil was crouched in front of Kevin and grinning something fierce, his eyes dancing with mischief and mirth and he guided Kevin into a standing position.

“Come on you fucking behemoth. Let's get you looked at.” Andrew quipped as he wrapped his arm around Kevin's torso, just below where Neil's arm already rested, and led them out of the court. 


End file.
